Sinkholes and their impacts on karst hydrogeology in a peatland complex of Northern Ontario, Canada

Purpose: In Canada, the incidence of childhood obesity has tripled within the past 20 years. The prevalence of obesity in the Timmins, Ontario, student population was studied to gain knowledge for program planning and resource allocation, and to compare Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) criteria with Cole’s international criteria for childhood obesity. Methods: Anthropometric measurements of 801 students were taken. Students were chosen from randomly selected schools for each grade. Data were analyzed according to age, gender, and ethnicity. Data were also compared with other studies. Intragroup comparisons were performed using hypothesis testing for significance with the z table and chi-square test. Results: Overweight and obesity prevalence was 28% according to CDC criteria. No statistical difference was found between genders or among ethnic groups, or between this study and other Canadian studies. In comparison with the CDC criteria, Cole’s international criteria indicated less obesity and increased overweight prevalence. These differences were not statistically significant. Conclusions: The findings suggest that in the northern Ontario community of Timmins, the prevalence of childhood obesity is of epidemic proportions. When the findings are shared with different agencies, this study will help the health unit to take necessary public health measures to curb the epidemic.

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‘How do you get to Tim Hortons?’ Direction-giving in Ontario dialects

The Canadian Journal of Linguistics / La revue canadienne de linguistique ◽

10.1017/cnj.2020.34 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 66 (1) ◽

pp. 1-30

Author(s):

Lisa Schlegl ◽

Sali A. Tagliamonte

Keyword(s):

Regional Variation ◽

Speech Act ◽

Urban Center ◽

Canadian English ◽

Northern Ontario ◽

Southern Ontario ◽

Cardinal Directions ◽

Physical Layout

AbstractIn this study, we target the speech act of direction-giving using variationist sociolinguistic methods within a corpus of vernacular speech from six Ontario communities. Not only do we find social and geographical correlates to linguistic choices in direction-giving, but we also establish the influence of the physical layout of the community/place in question. Direction-giving in the urban center of Toronto (Southern Ontario) contrasts with five Northern Ontario communities. Northerners use more relative directions, while Torontonians use more cardinal directions, landmarks, and proper street names – for example, Go east on Bloor to the Manulife Centre. We also find that specific lexical choices (e.g., Take a right vs. Make a right) distinguish direction-givers in Northern Ontario from those in Toronto. These differences identify direction-giving as an ideal site for sociolinguistic and dialectological investigation and corroborate previous findings documenting regional variation in Canadian English.

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An Automatic and Operational Method for Land Cover Change Detection Using Spatiotemporal Analysis of MODIS Data: A Northern Ontario (Canada) Case Study

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information ◽

10.3390/ijgi10050325 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 325

Author(s):

Ima Ituen ◽

Baoxin Hu

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Cover ◽

Change Detection ◽

Land Cover Change ◽

Basic Unit ◽

Operational Method ◽

Northern Ontario ◽

Modis Data ◽

Forest Fire Management ◽

Land Cover Change Detection

Mapping and understanding the differences in land cover and land use over time is an essential component of decision-making in sectors such as resource management, urban planning, and forest fire management, as well as in tracking of the impacts of climate change. Existing methods sometimes pose a barrier to the effective monitoring of changes in land cover and land use, since a threshold parameter is often needed and determined based on trial and error. This study aimed to develop an automatic and operational method for change detection on a large scale from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. Super pixels were the basic unit of analysis instead of traditional individual pixels. T2 tests based on the feature vectors of temporal Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and land surface temperature were used for change detection. The developed method was applied to data over a predominantly vegetated area in northern Ontario, Canada spanning 120,000 sq. km from 2001–2016. The accuracies ranged between 78% and 88% for the NDVI-based test, from 74% to 86% for the LST-based test, and from 70% to 86% for the joint method compared with manual interpretation. Our proposed method for detecting land cover change provides a functional and viable alternative to existing methods of land cover change detection as it is reliable, repeatable, and free from uncertainty in establishing a threshold for change.

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